


Long Live the King

by imaginary_golux



Category: The Lion King (1994)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-26 23:02:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2669654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Scar didn't kill Mufasa, and one time he did.</p>
<p>Written for the Disney Kink Meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Live the King

1) They are born together, the only two male cubs of their litter, and Mufasa is larger and stronger and golden in the sunlight; he is the one who Rafiki holds aloft and the animals of the plains salute. Scar is smaller, darker, weaker, but he is strong enough – he watches from the cave as the elephants trumpet their submission, and thinks that he could run, faster than his parents think he can, could run out to the end of Pride Rock and through Rafiki’s legs. Rafiki is not young, and has his hands full – he would fall, Scar thinks, he and Mufasa, and the stones below would break them both.

And Scar would fall with them, most likely. He is not that coordinated yet, young as he is. He puts his head down on his paws and tries not to hear the animals give welcome to their rightful king.

2) Mufasa is brave as children are, who have never been refused anything nor harmed by anyone, and Scar follows him always, so that sometimes it seems that Mufasa has two shadows, a living one and one cast by the sun. Today they go to a watering hole where a crocodile is said to have taken up residence. Mufasa wants to see a crocodile.

It looks like nothing so much as a lumpy log lying upon the bank, but Scar sees its eye slit open, sees the hunger and the indifferent cruelty in its gaze. They are sitting on a boulder, too far for the crocodile to reach, and Scar knows that he could stretch, could stumble, could knock his brother sideways and down, and the crocodile would lunge forward, snap, and its teeth would be red and its eyes would be open and it would look nothing like a log at all.

But Mufasa is clever and swift on his feet. Perhaps he would not fall. Perhaps Scar would fall, instead, and the blood on the crocodile’s teeth would be his own. Scar follows his brother back to Pride Rock, and smiles when Mufasa brags of his own courage.

3) Mufasa is courting Sarabi, beautiful Sarabi, and Scar slinks along behind them where they will not see him, follows them up hill and down creek-bed until they stop in the shade of a small cliff to lie beside each other and groom each other’s faces, so in love that it is positively sickening. Scar lurks behind a boulder above them, watching the sun set. He could lean against the boulder – it is but loosely set into the cliff, and would topple as soon as he put weight against it – and it would slide free and rumble down too fast for Mufasa to rise, would crush Mufasa like an ant.

But it would crush Sarabi too, and that, Scar is not quite willing to do. She is very beautiful, is Sarabi, and perhaps, if Scar is lucky – clever – cunning – something, someday she will look at him and smile her secret smile. Scar slinks away and does not hear his brother win Sarabi’s love.

4) Their father is dead, and Mufasa stands atop Pride Rock and roars his sovereignty to the vast plains. Scar sits and watches, and seethes, and holds his tongue. He could challenge Mufasa – is he not a prince as well – could even kill him, perhaps, but in fair combat it is even odds whether Mufasa or Scar would triumph. Mufasa is stronger, Scar knows from their wrestling matches; Scar is faster. Mufasa has the bulk and the courage, Scar the cunning and the treachery. Even odds. Scar has never liked even odds.

He watches Mufasa take the kingship which has always waited for him, and bows his head so no one will see the fury in his eyes.

5) Mufasa paces back and forth before the cave, and from within Sarabi growls and snarls the pain as she gives birth. Sarabi’s first litter, Mufasa’s get – the children which surely ought to be Scar’s. Scar could go now, could try to lure Mufasa from the cave with some story of a wounded buffalo or a distressed giraffe, could bring him out into the plains all distracted, to a place far from anywhere, and while Mufasa looked over his shoulder, yearning towards his mate and children, Scar could tear his throat out.

But the children would still be born, Sarabi would still be Mufasa’s mate. There would be an heir, a golden child for Rafiki to hold above the bowing hordes, anointed king-to-be.

Scar paces at the foot of the mountain, his steps an echo to his brother’s, and waits.

+1) Finally, the waiting is over. The cub is dead, or will be soon, who looks so like Mufasa did when he was young; and Mufasa, mad with worry, does not see his brother’s smile until it is far too late. Scar watches his brother dangle from the cliff, watches the pain in his eyes give way to the horror of realization, of knowing what is to come, and digs his claws a little deeper into Mufasa’s paws.

“Long live the king,” he says, and lets his brother fall.


End file.
